It's Papa's coat she's wrapped in,
his old wool Lodenmantel, like a child

wrapped in a blanket of green leaves,

I’ve seen those paintings and I think he must hate women.
      Must hate
us. I imagine you’d say they aren’t about us, our bodies,

In my dream of Joseph Beuys
      I’m writing a hymn for him, a hymn
of praise, and he stares out at me

Summer afternoon, Henry James said,
the most beautiful words in the language.

hissing and gaping, and this time it won’t stop —
  nothing will stop its mud-black heart—